The brewhouse—the collection of equipment that converts raw ingredients into wort—is the heart of a brewery. From a custom-fabricated one-barrel nanobrewery setup to the workaday turnkey systems from manufactures such as Premier Stainless and BrauKon to large-scale multi-million dollar brewhouses that cook away at the country’s largest craft breweries, there are no one-size-fits-all brewhouse designs. And with more than 5,000 breweries now operating in America, there is an example of every conceivable configuration of tuns and kettles. In the Los Angeles community of Venice Beach, there’s one brewhouse that’s unique in both configuration and in how it’s used. The 10-hectoliter system at Firestone Walker’s Propagator brewpub is as streamlined, as efficient, and even as stylish as a German luxury car, and it gives the lauded regional brewery a nimble vehicle for chasing trends, exploring new ground, and even revisiting some old favorites.
“Los Angeles is our fastest-growing market,” Firestone Walker Cofounder David Walker says, and the Propagator gives the brewery a permanent foothold in L.A., joining the taproom restaurants in Paso Robles (home of the main brewery) and Buellton (where the wild ale–focused Barrelworks is based).
The Venice campus, a little more than a mile from the beach, is the base of operations for Firestone Walker in Southern California and includes a taproom restaurant, retail store, offices, and other support infrastructure. At the core of the compound is a cutting-edge brewhouse built by Kaspar Schulz—a 340-year-old manufacturer that’s been family-operated in Bamburg, Germany, for ten generations. Kaspar Schulz is known for their brewpub-scale systems and advanced brewhouse automation.